No.

4, 16 December 2004

Strengthening the United Nations to Provide Collective Security for the 21st Century By Stephen Stedman
The following is based on a briefing presented to UNA-USAs Board of Directors and International Policy Committee on 3 December 2004. Last year, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a panel consisting of 16 former heads of state, foreign ministers and security, military, diplomatic and development officials to propose ways of strengthening collective security.1 The High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change released its recommendations on 2 December 2004, urging the adoption of a new, far-reaching consensus to help the world face new and evolving threats in the 21st century, and to strengthen the United Nations.2 Mr. Annan plans to take the panels recommendations into account in his own report in March 2005, which will help set the agenda for a special UN summit scheduled for world leaders next September. Introduction The following three aims guided the High Level Panels work: (1) to evaluate current and emerging threats to international peace and security; (2) to evaluate the United Nations performance in addressing those threats; and (3) to make policy and institutional change recommendations based on those assessments. It is important to recognize that the panels report is a consensus but not lowest-common-denominator document. It represents agreement on the part of 16 distinguished, experienced and diverse statesmen and women on a whole host of recommendations that address the most compelling threats of the day.

Stephen Stedman, currently on leave from Stanford University, was appointed the Research Director for the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change in the fall of 2003.

1 The members of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change are: Robert Badinter (France), Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway), Mary Chinery-Hesse (Ghana), Gareth Evans (Australia), David Hannay (Britain), Enrique Iglesias (Uruguay), Amr Moussa (Egypt), Satish Nambiar (India), Sadako Ogata (Japan), Anand Panyarachun (Thailand), Yevgeny M. Primakov (Russia), Qian Qichen (China), Nafis Sadik (Pakistan), Salim Ahmed Salim (Tanzania), Brent Scowcroft (United States) and Joao Baena Soares (Brazil). 2

The report is available at: http://www.un.org/secureworld/.

Assessing Current Threats In the 60 years since the founding of the UN, the world has changed dramatically. In its approach, the panel sought to maintain the essence of collective security, but broaden it to include threats that go far beyond aggression by states. The panel identified six clusters of threats: 1. Interstate conflict; 2. Poverty, infectious disease and environmental degradation; 3. Internal violence, including civil war, genocide, ethnic cleansing and state failure; 4. Weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons; 5. Terrorism; and 6. Transnational organized crime. The panel underscored three conceptual points. The first is that we live in an era of an unprecedented interconnection of threats. Second, there is an unprecedented mutual vulnerability between rich and poor, weak and strong. And third, the nature of todays threats is such that no state, no matter how powerful, can unilaterally defend itself against these threats. All of the threats, if they are to be either prevented or responded to, require global cooperation. The report illustrates these points by analyzing a set of concrete threats. For example: Because of global economic integration, if ever there were to be a nuclear attack by terrorists on New York City, in addition to the death and devastation that would occur in New York, the economic damage globally would run in the trillions of dollars. Tens of millions of people in the developing world would be pushed either further into poverty or below the poverty line. Given what we now know about the relationship between intense poverty and infant mortality, there would be two death tollsthe first in New York from the physical attack itself, and the second would be a hidden death toll throughout the developing world. The biological security of the United States or Europe is dependent on the ability of the poorest countries to monitor, respond to and contain an emerging infectious disease. Scientists tell us that over the last 20 years, we have seen an average of two new emerging infectious diseases per year. HIV/AIDS is obviously the most deadly. Others include Ebola, SARS, etc. The incubation time of many deadly infectious diseases is longer than the average international flight time, which means any one of 700 million annual air passengers could be an unwitting carrier of a deadly infectious disease. The amount of highly enriched uranium that it would take to create an improvised nuclear device could fit in six one-liter milk cartons. One can imagine how much illicit material is smuggled into the United States or Europe everyday. If terrorists were ever to get their hands on that much highly enriched uranium, they would probably have no problem in getting it into a country to create a nuclear device. This issue, as explained in the report, urgently requires cleaning up highly enriched uranium

around the world, revising the nonproliferation regime to create incentives for states to forego the development of domestic uranium enrichment and reprocessing facilities, and strengthening the capacity of states throughout the world to exert better border control. Incentives for states to join the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and for intelligence sharing are also recommended. A whole host of cooperative measures would be needed in order to establish a comprehensive strategy to deal with the problem of nuclear terrorism. Members of the panel also noted that the world needs to recognize that future threats could be even worse than the scenarios already mentioned. Thus, there is a high premium on prevention across all of these threats. Even in the case of HIV/AIDS, which of all the challenges that the panel examined has been the deadliest to date, the panel acknowledges that we still do not know what the worst outcomes are going to be and that we have not succeeded in stemming the pandemic. Moreover, we do not know what the cumulative effects of HIV/AIDS are going to be on societies and states in Africa. What are the long term impacts where care-providers, government officials, police and military have all been wiped out by this disease, they ask? What is it going to mean for basic questions related to stability and order? The panel asserts that development is the first line of defense for collective security and cites three reasons. First, development is the antidote to the most pressing human security threats, including poverty, infectious disease and environmental degradation, each of which kills millions every year. Second, development is absolutely crucial for creating states that have the capacity to exercise their sovereignty responsibly. In the end, any collective security system is only as good as the capacity of its constituent states. Third, given what we now know about the relationship between poverty and onset of civil war, development is the best medium- to long-term strategy for the prevention of deadly conflict. Assessing the UNs Performance The panel directly points out the UNs failures, but also calls attention to those areas where the UN has been more effective than it is often given credit. For example, the panel notes that the UN has had relative success in ending civil wars and preventing nuclear proliferation. UN mediation, peacekeeping, peace-building and the implementation of peace agreements have been the operational face of the world body in international peace and security efforts since 1990. The first indicator of the UNs effectiveness is that the number of civil wars worldwide has decreased by almost 40 percent between 1992 and today. The second indicator is that there have been more negotiated settlements of civil wars in the 1990s than in the previous 200 years. Clearly not all of this is attributable to the UN. Civil society, regional organizations and powerful states have also been very active in this area. There have also been tremendous failuresRwanda, Angola, Srebrenica. But those failures underscore the importance of investing in mediation and the implementation of peace agreements. If the Bicesse Accord on Angola in 1991-92, and the Arusha Accords on Rwanda in 1993-94, were implemented successfully, the panel argues that about three million lives would have been saved in the 1990s. This again indicates that

investment in the implementation of peace agreements and peacebuilding is absolutely crucial. In the early 1960s, the Kennedy Administration estimated the emergence of 15 or 20 nuclear weapon states by 1975. Other estimates from that period were as high as 50. Forty years later, there are eight, maybe nine. At least part of the explanation for that success has been the nonproliferation regime and the role played by the IAEA in reducing both the demand for these weapons and the supply of materials necessary to create them.

The Panels Recommendations The panel points out that the nuclear nonproliferation regime is in deep trouble and, unless serious policy changes take place, the world could see a cascade of proliferation in the next 10 to 15 years. The panel identified a whole package of recommendations to address the demand for these weapons, the supply of nuclear materials, the need for better verification and monitoring and, most of all, the need for better enforcement. The panel makes the following recommendations: negotiations for the IAEA to become a guarantor for fissile material at market rates should be pursued; a voluntary, timelimited moratorium should be established on the construction of uranium enrichment and reprocessing facilities; the IAEA Board of Governors should make the Additional Protocol the agency standard for safeguard inspections and the Security Council should act on the basis of those standards; countries should join PSI if they have not already done so; and negotiations on a verifiable, comprehensive fissile material cut-off treaty should be pursued. Regarding biological weapons, the panel asserts that advances in biotechnology point to great promise in terms of the treatment of deadly diseases, but they also bring a perilthe creation of deadly designer pathogens. The panel found that over the next five to 10 years, talented doctoral students working in well-equipped laboratories all around the world will probably be able to create these kinds of designer pathogens. Therefore, alone, no international treaty with verification and monitoring will solve this problem. There are going to be so many commercial and educational facilities that will be able to create these biological agents that a verification and monitoring regime will not suffice. Instead, the panel suggests the world should focus on defense through robust public health. This will require a significant investment, including rebuilding local and national public health capacity throughout the developing world, and putting more resources into the World Health Organization and its deadly disease surveillance and response capacity. This is a win-win policy in that it addresses developing world concerns of infectious disease and is also one of the best defenses against bioterrorism. One of the more controversial recommendations is a call for close ties between the WHO directorgeneral and the Security Council if in the future there is either a suspicious manmade outbreak of a deadly disease, or a massive outbreak of naturally occurring infectious disease. The panel goes so far as to say that under extraordinary circumstances we might have a situation where the Security Council is going to have to mandate

international action if a country that is faced with a massive disease outbreak cannot control and quarantine it. In such a case, the Security Council may have to treat such an outbreak as a threat to international peace and security and act accordingly. On terrorism, the report makes a number of observations and recommendations. First, the United Nations is never going to be a key operational actor in the fight against terrorism, but it can be a strong normative voice against terrorism. The panel pulls no punches by stating that the UN has not used its normative strength to its best advantage. The panel calls for the creation, with the Secretary-General taking the lead, of a clear, coherent, principled strategy of counterterrorism that is respectful of universal human rights and the rule of law. Furthermore, the member states need to finally agree on a definition of terrorism. The panel puts forward a consensus definition that is remarkable because it does not excuse any kind of resistance to occupation such as freedom fightingas a just cause for terrorism. It is very clear in its language that no cause, no matter how compelling, is an excuse to kill civilians indiscriminately or otherwise. Regarding the use of force, the panel recognizes that there will be times when prevention fails and an enforcement capacity is necessary. In this connection, the panel looked at several issues: Are the provisions of the UN Charter, including Article 51 on self-defense adequate given the threats of today? A literal reading of Article 51 requires waiting until an attack before being able to respond in self defense. But the panel, relying on international customary law, disagrees with this narrow view, pointing out that there is extant law that indicates if a threat is truly imminent, then states need not wait to be attacked. In other words, states can engage in anticipatory self-defense as long as the threat is imminent. As such, the panel finds no reason to either constrain or broaden the interpretation of Article 51. As for the use of force against threats that may be latent but not imminent, the panel notes that under international law, states cannot use force for preventive reasons against a threat that may be far off but gathering. However, the panel recognizes the following dilemma. On the one hand, under international law there is no right to the use of preventive force. On the other hand, no state today would want to wait to the point where a threatsuch as terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weaponsbecomes imminent. The panel recommends a collective response in these cases. When a state faces a threat that is not imminent, it should take the matter to the Security Council. In these cases, the Security Council is going to have to be much more proactive and, as such, there are likely to be situations in the future in which the Security Council will have to collectively authorize the use of force for preventive reasons. The panel recommends the following five criteria to guide the Security Council in deciding whether to authorize the use of force: the seriousness of a threat; proper purpose; last resort; proportional means; and balance of consequences (i.e., whether military action is likely to have better or worse results than inaction). The guidelines are drawn from the just war tradition and were also part of the Canadiansponsored Responsibility to Protect initiative. To the extent that the Security Council

uses these guidelines, the panel argues, we can expect to see more accountability and better decision-making. The guidelines are meant to maximize the likelihood of getting consensus on the use of force. In the area of humanitarian intervention, the panel endorses the notion of the responsibility to protect. The panel recognizes that sovereignty cannot be used as a shield by member states to hide behind in the cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing, large-scale loss of civilian life, or large-scale violations of international humanitarian law. These ideas are not new, but it is significant to have consensus support for them by a group with such diverse membership spanning the Americas and Europe, as well as Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Finally, on institutional reform, the panel examined what needs to be changed in order to get a more effective United Nations for the 21st century. The panel sends a clear message to the General Assembly saying it has failed to take advantage of its normative strength as the only place in the world where all 191 member states can come together and debate the most pressing issues of the day. Because of its wide-ranging agenda, it rarely does. According to the panel, to be more relevant, the General Assembly should shorten its agenda and make its committees smaller in order to do more focused work. Turning to the Security Council, the panel asserts that the Security Council should be expanded, for several reasons. First and foremost, those countries that contribute more to the organization should be given a larger say in decision-making. In addition, there is a need to create more regional representation, especially on the part of developing countries. The panel agrees on a set of principles for Security Council enlargement and the criteria for either new permanent members or for longer-term members. The panel, however, could not reach a consensus on whether expansion should take place in the permanent category or not, and put forward two models of Security Council expansion. Both models envision expansion to 24 members and involve changing the existing regional groupings, but only for the purpose of Security Council voting, to create new regional areas: the Americas, a unified Europe, Africa, and Asia and Pacific (New Zealand and Australia would be included in Asia and Pacific; Canada and the United States would be part of the Americas group). There would be no extension of the veto in either of the models. In the permanent model, there would be an expansion of six new permanent memberstwo for Asia, two for Africa, one for Europe and one for the Americas. The other model envisions no expansion in the permanent category, but the creation of four-year renewable seats. Countries with one of these four-year seats could go to the General Assembly every four years and make the case for another term based on their contributions to international peace and security. The panel said that the General Assembly should pay particular attention to those countries that contribute the most to the workings of the organization for either permanent seats or for the longer-term nonpermanent seats. Priority should be given to countries that are in the top three in each of these regions in assessed contributions, voluntary contributions, or contributions of troops to UN peacekeeping missions. In any region, these criteria could produce a pool of

as many as nine candidates. But the point is that the membership has to get serious about putting those members who contribute more to the organization onto the Security Council. The panel recommends the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission, which would be an intergovernmental organ to deal with countries that are under stress as well as countries that are transitioning from peacekeeping to something else. When countries try to make the transition from peacekeeping to peacebuilding, they often fall of the radar screen of the Security Council. Nobody is paying attention, mobilizing resources, or providing policy guidance, reports the panel. This new subsidiary body of the Security Council would serve as a home for peacebuilding on the intergovernmental side of the organization. To support the Commission, the panel recommends the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office in the Secretariat, which would include 25 to 30 people with field experience on various questions pertaining to peacebuilding, rule of law, constitutional design, etc. It would be an operational office, which could also be the Secretariats link to the Peacebuilding Commission and act as a best practices unit. On the Commission on Human Rights, the panel is critical of its performance. The members point out that, all too often, countries try to get on the Commission to criticize other human rights records or deflect criticism of their own record. The panel puts forth a set of recommendations that can only work as a package. First, they recommend making membership of the Human Rights Commission universal in an attempt to avoid politicizing the election process. At the same time, it would remind all 191 member states that they have a universal obligation to protect human rights. They also recommend the creation of a smaller advisory panel of human rights experts, chosen by the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner. Lastly, the panel supports strengthening the role of the High Commissioner. The panel makes several recommendations to strengthen the Secretariat. The first is the creation of a second Deputy-Secretary-General (DSG). The idea is to have one Deputy-Secretary-General focused on development and another dedicated to international peace and security. The second DSG would play a role analogous to the US National Security Advisor, coordinating and scrutinizing policy-making on peace and security issues. The panel also recommends: the establishment of a strategic analysis capacity in the same office in order to enable the Secretariat to develop strategic views and option papers; an increased capacity within the Secretariat to support mediation and good offices; and a one-time personnel review using early retirement in some instances to create more space within the organization for its younger staffwho are in their 30s and 40s and now have a great deal of field experienceto move up in the organization.

Q&A / Discussion Following Mr. Stedmans briefing to UNA-USAs Board and International Policy Committee, the discussion turned to how the panels report fits into the SecretaryGenerals broader reform plans. Mr. Stedman explained that some of the 101 recommendations can be implemented by the Secretary-General himself and he has already pledged to develop a counterterrorism strategy for the UN. Others will require member states to support changes. The Secretary-General will use this report as an

input into the Millennium Review. He intends to develop six to eight recommendations in advance of the heads of state meeting in September 2005. Mr. Stedman will work in the Secretary-Generals office as a special adviser on implementation of the Panels recommendations. When asked which two or three recommendations would make the biggest impact, Mr. Stedman replied that this kind of prioritization runs somewhat counter to the reports conceptual basis which focuses on the interrelationship of threats. For immediate US interests, Mr. Stedman suggested the reports recommendations on the UN role in counterterrorism, the nuclear nonproliferation regime, biological security and statebuilding would be very valuable. Regarding the cost of implementing these recommendations, Mr. Stedman said the biological security area would involve substantial investments in building public health capacities, and estimated that all the Secretariat staffing recommendations would cost only $15 to 20 million in the United Nations regular budget each year. When discussing costs, however, he said it was important to recognize that the single biggest inefficiency in the United Nations is the inability to get serious about prevention.

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